Pope opposes IVF Technology and Condoms:
June 11, 2005
Vote on Fertility Law Fires Passions in Italy
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO,
International Herald Tribune
nytimes.com
MILAN, June 9 - As Italy's most powerful men - from politicians to bishops - debated the ethics of the country's restrictive fertility law this week, Lorena Pennati lay gingerly in a hospital bed here, rubbing the sore spot where doctors had just removed nine of her eggs.
Because of the law's strict limits on the use of eggs, sperm and embryos - the subject of a contentious national referendum here this weekend - Ms. Pennati, 34, is embarking on what doctors universally regard as substandard infertility treatment.
Since the law passed last year, the only treatment now permissible in Italy produces less than half as many pregnancies as the usual care does in many cases, a new study shows. As a result, doctors say, Italians with money now travel for treatment - to Spain, Switzerland or Ukraine.
In her quest for a baby, Ms. Pennati had undergone weeks of painful and risky injections to produce the eggs that will be now be combined with her husband's sperm. As millions of Italians head to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to repeal some parts of the law, Ms. Pennati is scheduled to have the embryos placed in her womb. The chance of a pregnancy is very low, she knows.
"Everyone presents this as a political or religious position, but no one looks at this from the point of view of women and how it touches their lives," Ms. Pennati said, her husband huddled at her bedside. Perhaps no political issue since the 1981 vote on abortion has fired public passion and divided the country like the coming referendum, tearing rifts in political parties and setting off public debates between politicians and their wives.
The law, the most restrictive on medically assisted fertility in Europe, closely controls the creation and use of human embryos. Doctors cannot test embryos for genetic defects or freeze them in order to better a woman's chances of pregnancy, a method Ms. Pennati probably would have used were it not for the law. Researchers cannot use them to perform stem cell research.
Pope Benedict XVI expressed support for the law last week. It was his first foray into Italian politics.
The debate consumes the front page of every newspaper and seems to be the only topic on Italy's evening television talk shows. The opposing sides have plastered thousands of posters along the streets of Rome - featuring beaming starlets, earnest scientists, nursing mothers and even cute swimming sperm.
"We all come from embryos," says one advertisement, aiming to keep the law in place. From the other side, "Assisted fertility works," read a poster featuring an image of the Virgin Mary and Child.
For the referendum to count, at least half of the nearly 50 million Italian voters must vote, a high bar. Indeed, in a strategic attempt to jettison the referendum and keep the infertility law intact, Italian prelates have told parishioners to head to the beach instead of the polling places on Sunday and Monday, so that the quorum will not be met.
Whichever side wins, the political fallout has already been significant. Gianfranco Fini, Italy's foreign minister and the head of one of Italy's major conservative political parties, is facing an in-house rebellion after announcing that he would vote to overturn part of the law. Francesco Rutelli, a leader of the center-left opposition drew howls of protest when he said he would abstain.
Normally outspoken politicians like Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have so far refused to take a public position. (He says only that his wife favors repeal.)
Some Italians said they were appalled that Roman Catholic Church leaders and elected officials would encourage people not to vote. "It's absurd that they would urge us not to exercise the most democratic instrument the citizen has," said Licio Zanetti, 44, a stockbroker.
Agata Fantauzzi, 33, an office cleaner in a black ITALIA sweatshirt, said she would heed the church's call not to vote, in order to protect the law. "We were all embryos once," she said. "I wouldn't have wanted to have been manipulated."
Such arguments hold little sway in the infertility clinic here, where Italian law has made treatment more risky and curtailed patients' options. Infertile couples may not use donated eggs, for example, required for success in many women over 40.
In much of the world, infertility patients take weeks of hormone injections to produce a large number of eggs, which are then combined with sperm to produce embryos. These are tested for genetic problems and then frozen for future use in as many pregnancy attempts as necessary. Because of the relatively high rate of miscarriage in medically assisted fertility, two to three embryos are generally placed in the womb per attempt.
But in Italy, embryos - considered under the law to be sacred human lives - can no longer be tested or stored; only eggs can be frozen, and they tend to lose potency. According to the law, exactly three harvested eggs are used in each attempt to create embryos, which must be immediately implanted in the womb.
But medically assisted fertility is an imperfect science, so three eggs often yield no embryos at all, requiring the woman to start over.
Pope Assails Condom Use
VATICAN CITY, June 10 (Reuters) - In a speech on Friday to bishops from five African countries, Pope Benedict XVI attacked the use of condoms to fight H.I.V. and AIDS, saying the church was leading the fight against the epidemic by teaching chastity and fidelity.
He urged the bishops - from South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho - to work to fight the virus.
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